


A Small Price To Pay

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Personal Affairs
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows he's bad for her. That's why he can't have her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Price To Pay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diagon/gifts).



"Is it real?" Midge went closer to the painting and touched it, rubbing one polished fingernail across the canvas. Her nails were a glossy dark burgundy. Yesterday they were a soft red to match her dress. The day before, they'd been electric blue.

Simon watched her stroke across the artist's signature. Nonplussed, he followed her movements when she frowned and bent closer, then she scratched at the canvas. Tiny shavings of paint flaked and fluttered onto the floor of his office.

Remembering the exorbitant price he'd paid for the picture, he resisted the urge to yelp in protest. His voice neutral, he said, "That's a Stubbs." His gaze wandered from the painting to the way Midge's skirt rode up at the back, giving him a tantalising glimpse of thigh. Simon cleared his throat and said again, "A Stubbs."

"Ah, so that's what it says there." Midge straightened and took a step back. She surveyed the picture with her nose wrinkled in a charming fashion, then put her hands on her hips, as if the action would better qualify her to judge the merits of the painting. "It's a bit... beige, isn't it?"

Her sing-song voice filled the room. Simon smiled and moved closer until he stood almost within touching distance. If only he could slide his hand around her trim waist and bring her back against him; if only she'd turn and look up at him with the same naughty, mischievous expression she gave that little toe-rag Robbie Whatsisname. But Simon knew better than to hope for that, and so he stayed close--but not too close.

He was close enough to smell her perfume--something light and floral today, with a hint of honey and a touch of musk. He'd chosen that perfume for her and had it blended specially in a little shop near the Louvre in Paris. He decanted it himself into a generic glass bottle, tied a bow inexpertly around the neck--pink chiffon with a thread of silver running through it--and gave it to Grace the week before Christmas.

"Really, Simon, that's awfully kind of you," she'd said, her eyebrows arching impossibly high, "but I prefer to choose my own perfume, you know."

"It's not for you." He'd kept his voice clipped, his face impassive, but felt the telltale burning of a blush on his ears. "I want you to give it to Midge."

Grace had looked at him, her eyes sharp with curiosity. "You give her the perfume. You're her boss."

"It wouldn't be appropriate."

He knew he was protesting too much. Ian gave Lucy perfume on every occasion, simply because it was an easy gift that required absolutely no thought on his part. Ian just sailed past the shelves in Duty Free as he returned from yet another sojourn in the South of France and selected whichever bottle was closest. Lucy always thanked him and displayed the bottle on her desk for the rest of the day, but later she'd give it to one of the other girls or leave it for the Hartmann-Payne cleaning staff.

Simon hadn't wanted to give Midge the perfume himself. She'd only perceive it as throwaway junk, the way Lucy did. She would think he was a useless boss, someone who didn't care about her likes and dislikes. His gift would be rejected before she'd even opened the stopper and taken a sniff of the heady fragrance.

He didn't want her to think less of him. The only way he could give her perfume was to get Grace to do it. A woman would accept perfume from a female friend, and Midge held Grace in such high esteem that even if the perfume smelled like rotten cabbages, she would wear it happily.

Simon didn't want to explain all this to Grace. She would understand, of course, but she would understand too much, and a man needs to have some secrets. Grace knew the value of secrets as much as Simon did, and so in the end, Grace wrapped the perfume in silver tissue paper and put it into a little velvet bag and gave it to Midge, who shrieked with excitement and hugged her and exclaimed that it was 'the best ever present, like ever'.

And Simon had watched through the crack of his office door as she dipped the tiny glass spill between her breasts, dabbing his fragrance over her skin. He'd had to go and find a girl from Accounts to fuck after that, and he'd had her in an empty meeting room, her skirt rucked up and her thighs splayed, her face a blur in the half-light. Not that it mattered, because he thought of Midge the whole time.

He pulled himself out of the memory, giving her his full attention. "Beige?" he repeated. "What do you mean, it's beige?"

"Well." Midge waved her hand at the painting. "It's so brown. And beige. It's boring." She spun around, the hem of her skirt flaring out over her knees, and she tottered towards him on those ridiculously high heels she always insisted on wearing. "Do you really like it, Simon? I mean, it's beige. It's not like what you see on that programme with Laurence Loony-Bowman. What you need in here is colour. Make a statement!"

Simon managed to contain his snort of laughter. "You don't think the Stubbs is statement enough?"

Midge curled her lip at the painting. "I suppose it's all right. I mean, if you like horses and all that. But who wants a horse that kicks? It doesn't look very friendly if you ask me." Glancing at him again, she continued, "I could get you a right proper picture if you want. Real tasteful, like. This weekend me dad's taking me to IKEA at Lakeside. They've got some lovely pictures in the marketplace. Do this room a treat, it would. Some nice red flowers or a picture of New York..."

The laughter threatened to bubble out of him, and Simon turned it into a cough. "Sounds delightful."

"Or!" Midge turned to him, her big brown eyes shining. "I can go to Athena in me lunch hour and get something for you there! But not the hunky man with the baby, 'cos everyone's got that one."

"Maybe the tennis player scratching her arse," Simon suggested.

Midge laughed. "Trust you!"

The smile faded from his face. She did trust him, and that was the stupid thing. Of all the people in this building, he was the one she shouldn't trust. Rock, Ian, Rachel, Jane... they were all pussycats compared to him. Even though it was common knowledge that he'd screwed half the female staff at Hartmann-Payne, including her friend Nicole, Midge refused to see him as the bastard he so obviously was.

Oh, she knew he was involved in shady deals, but it didn't bother her. She knew he had his faults and foibles, but she didn't care. He was her boss, and so anything he asked of her, she did it.

She'd done the cocaine run for him once. Just the once, and he'd been shitting himself the whole time she'd been out of the office. Jeeves' usual courier had been detained somewhere, and Simon had needed the drugs for a party that evening. He'd slammed the framed photograph of Evie and the kids across his desk, and the sound brought Midge running into his office asking what was wrong and did he need another alka-seltzer.

"No," he'd snapped, "I need a fucking courier!"

"This is for your drugs, yeah?" She stood tall in her heels and elegant 1950s dress that she said she'd found in a charity shop. "I can do it. Let me pick them up."

"No way. Absolutely out of the question."

"Oh, go on, Simon! Who'd suspect me? Besides, even if I do get arrested, I might meet some nice sexy copper." Her gaze became dreamy and she smiled. "Come on, Si. Let me do it."

Against his better judgement, he allowed it. He gave her strict instructions on where to go, what to say, and how to act, and she listened carefully and nodded. Then she skipped out of his office and, as she pulled on her jacket, Nicole asked where she was going in such a hurry.

"Oh, I'm picking up Simon's drugs for him," Midge had carolled across the office atrium, then she realised what she'd said and clapped a hand over her mouth. "I mean," she'd backpedalled, "he's got a cold coming, so I'm going to Boots to get him some Vicks and a Lemsip. They're drugs, aren't they? Just not Class A drugs."

She'd been gone forty minutes. He'd kept checking his watch against the time on his computer and the office clock. He'd toyed with his phone, glancing through the numbers of several high-ranking members of the judiciary. If Midge got arrested, he'd have her out of trouble in a heartbeat. If any of Jeeves' goons tried it on with her, he'd arrange for them to meet nasty accidents in dark alleyways.

After forty-three minutes, she returned with a Pret paper bag containing a breadless sandwich and a roll of securely taped baggies of cocaine. Simon almost wept with relief.

"Any problems?" he'd croaked, pretending he hadn't been worried at all.

"It was a breeze." She smiled at him, her hands behind her back like a little girl. "Piece of cake. By the way, the sandwich is for you."

The memory of that day still troubled him. Now he said, "You don't think the office would be enlivened by the picture of the tennis player scratching her arse?"

Midge put her head to one side. "It's not very classy, is it? I mean, if you had clients who were car mechanics and all that, it would be okay. I think the red flowers print from IKEA is more your kind of thing."

Simon nodded. "Very well. If you say so."

"I'll look on the internet, see how much it costs." With another dazzling smile, she tripped away back to her desk, her heels clicking across the floor, her bottom wiggling and her skirt swaying.

It hurt to turn away from her, but Simon managed it. He admired the Stubbs against his boring office wall, admired the discreet, muted spotlights emphasising the key areas of the painting. He stepped closer to the canvas and even admired the area where Midge had scraped off the oil paint with her nail.

Simon crouched and retrieved the flakes of paint with a moistened fingertip. He rubbed the paint between his thumb and forefinger and sighed as it turned to dust, just like everything else he touched.

Midge was the only thing in his life that wasn't poisonous or tainted. He was sure that, if only she knew how he felt, she'd be able to save him. But she didn't see him the way he wanted her to see him. Instead, she wasted her time on frippery fucks with Robbie Whatsisname and sighed over Richard 'Dr Shag' Palmer as well as Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, and several other undesirables gracing the pages of _Heat_ and _Grazia_ magazines. Simon hated them all, even the ones printed on paper. They took her attention away from him, and this made them his rivals.

It was stupid and childish, this infatuation. Simon shied away from calling it 'love', because he didn't know what that meant. If he loved his wife, he wouldn't sleep around. If he loved his children, he'd spend more time with them at home. If he loved his job, he wouldn't be so bloody cynical about it.

But Midge... she was a ray of light, a breath of fresh air. They had nothing in common, and this made her perfect. She never judged him, not even when she saw him at his worst. Only one person had ever valued him and treated him like that before, but that person--Adam Hartmann--was long gone.

Simon drew in a breath. Midge and Adam. He'd never made the connection before, and it was tenuous at best, but Midge reminded him of Adam in a way. Adam had had that same naivety, the same belief that everything would turn out for the best if he wanted it badly enough--and look where that had got him.

The breath eased out of him shakily. Simon unclenched his fists and shoved his hands in his pockets. Adam had been damaged beyond belief by the acts and opinions of other people. Simon would never allow Midge to suffer the same way.

He'd loved Adam, but together they'd screwed things up. He wouldn't screw things up for Midge, even if that meant he could never touch her, never hold her, never have her look at him with love.

It was, Simon decided with a last glance at the Stubbs, a small price to pay.


End file.
